Pizza is a type of bread and dish that has existed since time immemorial in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine. By 997 the term had appeared in Medieval Latin,[citation needed] and in 16th century Naples a Galette flatbread was referred to as a pizza.[citation needed] A dish of the poor people, it was sold in the street and was not considered a kitchen recipe for a long time.[citation needed] Before the 17th century, the pizza was covered with white sauce.[citation needed] This was later replaced by oil, cheese, tomatoes (after Europeans came into contact with the Americas) or fish. In 1843, Alexandre Dumas, père described the diversity of pizza toppings.[citation needed] In June 1889, to honor the Queen consort of Italy, Margherita of Savoy, the Neapolitan chef Raffaele Esposito created the "Pizza Margherita," a pizza garnished with tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and basil, to represent the colors of the Italian flag. He was the first to add cheese.[1] The sequence through which flavored flatbreads of the ancient and medieval Mediterranean became the dish popularized in the 20th century is not fully understood.
Origins
Foods similar to pizza have been prepared since the Neolithic age. Records of people adding other ingredients to bread to make it more flavorful can be found throughout ancient history.
In Sardinia, French and Italian archeologists have found a kind of bread baked over 3,000 years ago. According to Professor Philippe Marinval, the local islanders leavened this bread.[2]
The Tuscan tribes of Northern Italy believed Pizza to hold the spirits of deceased relatives.[3]
The Ancient Greeks had a flat bread called plakous (πλακοῦς, gen. πλακοῦντος - plakountos)[4] which was flavored with toppings like herbs, onion, and garlic.
In the 1st century BCE, the Latin poet Virgil refers to the ancient idea of bread as an edible plate or trencherfor other foods in this extract from his Latin poem, the Aeneid:
Their homely fare dispatch’d, the hungry band
Invade their trenchers next, and soon devour,
To mend the scanty meal, their cakes of flour.
Ascanius this observ’d, and smiling said:
“See, we devour the plates on which we fed.”
These flatbreads, like pizza, are from the Mediterranean area and other examples of flat breads that survive to this day from the ancient Mediterranean world are focaccia (which may date back as far as the AncientEtruscans), coca (which has sweet and savory varieties) from Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands, theGreek Pita or Pide in Turkish or Piadina in the Romagna part of Emilia-Romagna in Italy.[5]
Similar flat breads in other parts of the world include the Indian Paratha, the South Asian Naan, the SardinianCarasau, Spianata, Guttiau, Pistoccu, the Alsatian Flammkuchen and Finnish Rieska.
